not be.

And yet, in spite of (or perhaps on account of) PUNCHINELLO'S
mellifluous name, much cavil has been brought to bear upon him. (Prepare
to receive cavilry.)

Squadrons of well-meaning persons with speaking-trumpets marched to and
fro before the sponsors of PUNCHINELLO, each roaring at them to stop
such a name as _that_, and attend to _his_ suggestion, and his only.

One did not like PUNCHINELLO because it means a "little Punch," and
he--the speaking-trumpeter--liked a great deal; and lo! while he spoke,
he changed his trumpet for several horns. Then he was taken with a fit
of herpetology in his boots, and sank to advise no more.

Another--a fellow with an infinite fancy for buffo minstrelsy--was
vociferous that PUNCHINELLO should be called "Tommy Dodd." The
discussion upon this lasted for three months; but finally, "Tommy Dodd"
was rejected on account of the superfluously aristocratic aroma that
exhaled from the name.

Four divisions of men with banners then came by, each division
respectively composed of members of the waning families of Smith, Brown,
Jones, and Robinson, and each division bawled and thundered that the
name round which it rallied should be adopted instead of PUNCHINELLO, on
pain of death.

And thousands of others came with suggestions of a like sort; for which
some of them wanted "stamps." And when they had all had their say,
PUNCHINELLO was called PUNCHINELLO, and nothing else--a name by which he
means to stand or fall.

And now to business. PUNCHINELLO is not going to define his position
here. He refrains from boring his readers with prolix gammon about his
foreign and domestic relations. He will content himself (and readers, he
hopes) by briefly mentioning that he has foreign and domestic relations
in every part of the habitable globe, and that they each and all furnish
him with correspondence of the most reliable and spicy character,
regularly and for publication. Among his foreign relations he is happy
to reckon M. MEISSONNIER, the celebrated French artist, to whom he is
indebted for the original painting from which PUNCHINELLO, as he appears
on his own title-page, is taken.

A preface is not the place in which to enlarge upon topics of great
humanitarian interest, political importance, or social progress.
PUNCHINELLO will merely touch a few of such matters, then, and these
with a light finger. (No allusion, here, to the "light-fingered gentry,"
for whom PUNCHINELLO keeps a large